


Who is it this time?

by WhereAreTheBreaks



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Soft Frank Castle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 10:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12274614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhereAreTheBreaks/pseuds/WhereAreTheBreaks
Summary: Karen has pissed offanotherbad guy but manages to escape the attempted kidnapping only to run into Frank. From there, it's pretty easy to figure out that she might need a little help getting rid of this problem. As they work the case the tension between them rises and its only a matter of time before it reaches capacity.





	Who is it this time?

**Author's Note:**

> I've loved this pairing for a long while now but upon re-watching season two in preparation for The Punisher I decided I'd finally write something about them.

Looking back on things now, Karen never would have thought that she would end up working for one of the most popular newspapers in New York. It just never would have crossed her mind in college, all she wanted back then was to find something that she was good at and could make money from, enjoyment didn’t really seem to factor into the equation. That was before New York, before Union Allied and way before anything ever went wrong.

Now she lived in a city that never slept and never slowed down, not even for a second. She lived in a world where Aliens poured out of a portal in the sky and costumed men and women saved lives regularly. None of that had been a part of her plans. Especially not the part where one of her only friends was a costumed superhuman hell bent on bringing justice where he could. Or the part of her life that was suddenly taken over by the softness she held for a certain unmasked and definitively not dead vigilante. Sometimes she could barely wrap her head around all the crazy bullshit that followed her, starting from her teens years to present day.

Ellison was always telling her that one day she was going to dig up a truth that had been hidden so deep she wasn’t going to be able to find a way out of the hole she was no doubt going to find herself in. She always told him that if that day ever came she would find a way to save herself.

Not that that mentality was working out so well for her now. She knew the day would come when she found something that would kill her but she didn’t expect the moment to come on a lovely fall afternoon in central park. She supposed it was somewhat ironic that she would die near the spot that her first real case took place. 

“Don’t make a sound.”

The guy looked calm and average, she wouldn’t have suspected anything off about him if it hadn’t been for the hard press of a gun into the small of her back. It makes sense that the person they would send to kill her would be totally normal on the outside. An attack in the middle of the day? That was the most surprising part of it all. All the other times people had come after her it had always been in the dead of night, all those times either with her kicking their butts or one of her vigilante friends being close enough to help.

“Ms. Karen Page, you’ve made a lot of people very angry as of late and unfortunately one of those people happens to be my employer. You’re going to come with me and no one else has to get hurt.”

No one that could have helped her was around this time though. Matt was probably in the office working on his case with Foggy and Frank was probably sleeping off his busy night (if the news reports were anything to go off of). There wasn’t going to be a dashing last-minute rescue this time around.

She was glad, in the moment, that she had taken a few self-defense classes and taken up kick boxing but as he guided her through the park towards a waiting car she knew that those new-found skills weren’t going to be enough to help her now. No one seemed to notice the panic on her face or the glint of metal between her and the man just behind her. She thought about yelling for help, she really did, or maybe digging around for her phone and trying to call someone but it was probably at the bottom of her purse. Fact of the matter was that she didn’t want anyone else getting hurt because of her. Getting the attention of someone passing by was her only option, and that didn’t appeal to her all that much. She doubted this man would give a second thought to killing an innocent bystander.

So, she went quietly towards the end of the park, her best chance was probably going to come right before she was going to be shoved into the backseat of whatever vehicle they had waiting for her.

God, all she had wanted was a short little break from the office. She’d been working on an article that had hit a little too close to home and she’d just needed an hour or two to clear her head. Hence the visit to Central Park, she’d thought that walking would help to clear her mind. 

On the other hand, nothing clears the mind like fear and adrenaline. She needed to figure out a way out of this mess and one way or another she was going to have to wrestle away from him, and then she was going to have to get the gun out of his hands. After that it was just a matter of running as fast as she could into somewhere very public.

They were almost to the sidewalks, there were a few people going about their days but otherwise the street seemed surprisingly empty. The road wasn’t too busy either, so when the black van pulled up almost directly in front of them it wasn’t very hard to guess who it was.

He gripped her arm and pulled her half a step backwards so that he could whisper in her ear.

“Don’t even think of pulling some crap, I won’t hesitate to do something to make you regret it.” The very sound of his voice grated on her nerves. He was treating like she was dumb and hadn’t recently unmasked more corruption and newly founded criminal organizations in the last month than the police had found in the past six. She hated that she was being treated like she was nothing more than a dumb blonde.

She didn’t deign to reply to that threat, just continued to take in her surroundings. She tried to take note of her attacker for the police but she couldn’t really see him because of the tight grip he had on her. Karen envied Matt’s enhanced senses in that moment. 

All she can really tell of the guy is that he’s got brown hair styled in typical business man fashion and not a single feature that stood out. He had an average build and average height, nothing remarkable in the slightest.

It seemed to be just her luck lately.

They were only a few feet from the car now, it was time to make her move. 

Karen stomped as hard as she could on the man’s foot, trying to dig the point of her heel in as much as she could. His grip on her arm disappeared and the gun was lowered as he began to double over in pain, a movement that made it all the easier for her to throw her head back into his nose. The crunch of bone had never been more satisfying. 

He stumbled back and she heard the clicks of someone starting to open the sliding side door on the van but she didn’t stop to look, she just started running.

She’d done it! She’d gotten away!

She ran as best she could considering her choice of heels that morning, even if they were kitten heels they still made it difficult. People turned and looked at her as she blazed past them but people running through the bustling sidewalks wasn’t an uncommon sight so she didn’t think much of it, just kept running until she saw a crowded coffee shop. The line was practically to the door and most of the tables were taken up, a perfect hide out. She wiggled her way through the crowd towards the back where she could see a bathroom sign, she figured she could lock herself in the bathroom for a little bit and then figure out what to do from there while she bided her time.

That plan was thrown out the window when she bumped into a table and knocked over a cup.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” She picked up napkins from the table and laid them over the mess she had just made, trying to get it soaked up before it could make it into the stranger’s lap.

“It’s okay, ma’am.” The gravelly voice was instantly recognizable. 

She looked down and saw the familiar and ever-present bruising along the side of his face. Frank Castle.

He looked up at her as well, eyes scanning over the rosiness of her cheeks and the heaving of her chest and she could see him putting the pieces together. His eyes flicked to the windows and over the crowd, no doubt looking for the people responsible but she couldn’t bring herself to look alongside him because she was safe now. There was no way those men were going to be able to get through Frank Castle to get to her.

“I think I lost them,” She whispered the words. “I ran as soon as I thought that I’d actually be able to get away.”

His gaze bore back into her as she spoke. He looked a little impressed with her.

“I’ve been taking some classes lately. All things considered.” She awkwardly tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear and looked down at what remained of the puddle of coffee.

“You do seem to be a bit of a trouble magnet, ma’am.” He sounded a little amused by her vague understatement but didn’t seem to feel the need to address. Something that surprised her, the last time he had been there to save her from the latest upset gang member he had ranted about her sticking her nose in things that she shouldn’t and about how him and Red weren’t always going to be there to save her. 

She’d gone home and cried a little bit in the shower after it was all said and done but he doesn’t need to know about that.

“I got to be able to save myself occasionally.” She forced out a smile through all the other emotions currently racing through her brain. 

He smirked at her in the usual way he did when he couldn’t quite remember how to smile all the way, it wasn’t a full smile but it still made him look a thousand pounds lighter. Karen thought that it made the bruises that covered his face a little paler. She forced herself to look anywhere but him, just for a moment, just before anything else could pop into her head.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that you can handle yourself just fine, ma’am.” There was a lightness in his tone that always seemed to come out when he was around her. It usually made her feel special, but today it just made her feel warm.

She’d been so annoyed with Matt and Frank because of their incessant need to always been there when the slightest sign of trouble showed up, like she was some kind of damsel in distress that couldn’t do anything without a man there to guide her way. That’s why she didn’t hang around Matt as much anymore, he always made it sound like every little thing that happened to her was somehow his fault. Never mind the fact that she did all her own research for her articles and found the trouble without his help. At least Frank only told her to stop putting herself in his path.

All she could do in answer of his quiet praise was smile a little more brightly. There didn’t seem to be any words that would have fit the moment. So, she stared at him, taking in his face.

“Any idea who the shit stain you pissed off is?” He asked it casually but they both knew it was anything but.

“They didn’t say actually, just said that I had gotten into something I shouldn’t have and made their employer angry. You know, the usual stuff.”

He watched her for a moment, trying to gauge whether she was telling the truth or not. His trigger finger twitched on the table for a moment before her looked away from her.

“I’m sure they’ll come after you again.” He looked through the windows of the café. “We’ll find out who they are then.” It was almost funny that he had said ‘we’ without much thought, like it was nothing, when it meant a lot more than he was letting on. She still thought about the day that he had told her to stay away from him and what he did.

“Well as long as you don’t use me as bait this time around.” She meant it jokingly but his expression suddenly turned serious.

“You were never going to get hurt that night in the diner. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

“I know, Frank. I trust you.” They held eye contact and the moment suddenly felt charged, not an uncommon occurrence as of late. The moment lasted, neither of them moving to break the connection.

For a second it even felt like maybe time was slowing down around them, but then Frank looked away as a woman squeezed behind him to get to a nearby table and the illusion was shattered. 

He looked at her again but this time something was missing from his eyes. “I’ll find you later tonight and we’ll come up with a plan. Try not to get kidnapped before then.” There was some humor behind his words but the warning remained. “I’ll walk with you to wherever you need to go.”

She nodded and started to stand. “My lunch break is almost over anyways.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to let me know what you think and all the usual stuff. I hoped you all liked it as much as I liked writing it.


End file.
